The line between underground credibility and mainstream popularity is a very fine one and can be a bane or a blessing for many artists. It is a balance that DJs and producers constantly strive for. One man that has had no such problems is English studio producer, remix extraordinaire and superstar DJ, Erol Alkan.

As the resident DJ at the decade long electroclash clubnight Trash, he introduced the world to Soulwax and Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and revolutionized today’s genre-breaking electronic music scenes with his legendary DJ style and technical capabilities with a knack for getting the best out of his selected tracks. This was recognised with the Best DJ award from Mixmag in 2006 and number 1 spot on the 2008 DJ Mag Top 40 DJ Poll and since then has spent more time in the studio than behind the decks. Alkan recently released a compilation of psychedelic remixes with Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve: Re-Animations Vol. 1 with former Grid member Richard Norris, reworking artists like Midlake and Badly Drawn Boy. Add to that his knack for producing the hell out of next-big-thing indie acts like The Long Blondes and Late of the Pier, and Alkan’s got a well-rounded reputation as this generation’s super-producer. ITM caught up with studio-wiz before he arrives for the Parklife tour in September.

Hi Erol how are you? What are you up to at the moment?

I’m well thanks, just relaxing at home at the moment. Actually I’ll tell what I’m doing at the moment; I am organizing a fair bit of my record collection to be encoded. I’m getting a lot of records that I own that aren’t available in my studio and turning them digital. I’m probably going to be employing a whole team of people to do it because there’s quite a few, a few tens of thousands I think! It all stays at my house, in my record wall, which actually also acts as sound insulation, I certainly need it [laughs].

I’m pretty sure you’ve never been to Australia?

You’re right I haven’t been yet, but I’m coming soon. I was actually supposed to come earlier last year with The Chemical Brothers (for Future Music Festival) but I couldn’t because it was at the point when I making the Late Of The Pier album, so it was either tour Australia or make the Late Of The Pier album, and I had been really looking forward to making that record so unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it.

Why haven’t you made it down to Australia yet? I know that you have a fairly large and cult fan base down here.

Well, up until recently I had a very, very serious fear of flying. I couldn’t even bear the thought of getting on a plane to Germany, let alone Australia. Since then I have taken steps to get over that fear and I think I have pretty much beaten it.

What have you done to get over the fear?

You know what I’d recommend it to anyone – acupuncture. I didn’t kind of do it in relation to just flying, there were a lot of surrounding issues, but it has allowed me to relax about a lot more things in general.

When you are performing live as Erol Alkan are there many differences as opposed to performing as Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve?

To be honest there really aren’t many things in common between the two, they’re almost unrecognisable, except for the energy I hope. We get offers to play [as BTWS] superclubs and stuff like that but it doesn’t really work. We’d much rather play grotty little places that people can get in for free, more kind of pub rooms, rather than a room in a super club. We tried that and I don’t really think it works. I like it to feel a little more intimate, I don’t think that it’s really what the music entails. I’ve also actually just started experimenting with Traktor at the moment; I’m just going to try it out at home. I’m really interested to see if I can add anything to what I do. I don’t really like the idea of DJing just from a laptop. I mean say Ableton for me, I use it to produce, well actually Ableton, Logic and Protools, I use them all together when I’m in the studio, but I don’t like the idea of a machine mixing records for me. I like records slipping in and out of time and the weird shuffle you can get when they’re not exactly bang on, it takes a lot of the fun out of it. I mean it [Ableton] can be creative in the right hands but it many hands it can be quite boring.

Your Disco 3000 mix was something a little bit different from what you are known for, where and when did your interest for disco come along?

It’s always kind of been there, really. My musical education was through disco, through my uncle who was an absolute disco freak and he used to play me music when I was growing up. It’s been music that’s been in my record collection ever since I’ve been collecting records and now in the UK, the whole disco thing has kicked off again through nights like Horse Meat Disco and Disco Bloodbath, so the fact that now there is a focus on it again and people are getting excited about it is great. I’ve always loved disco and always played elements of disco out, but right now people are excited about it so I thought it would be a good time to. A lot of people who’ve gotten into dance music over the past couple of years wouldn’t have really heard many records that sounded like that and probably wouldn’t have realised that the sounds of now are heavily influenced by what happened back then. So it was almost a kind of archaeological expedition into the sonic DNA of what people are into now. I try to educate people as much as entertain them and I think you can do that at gigs but sometimes you have to present one element first outside of the club so people can understand it and grow to like it and then take the bat and run with it.

The tracklist was the subject of much debate, you kept it a secret on purpose, are you going to give it up any time soon?

I didn’t put the tracklisting up deliberately because I have a theory that a lot of people say they know what tracks are to be cool but don’t actually know what they are. It was kind of interesting to see “Ah yeah I know all this, but I don’t know the titles.” I think when that mix went up I think it was at the point where people weren’t seeking records out anymore, to discover, that they just wanted stuff to say they owned it. I find that, maybe because I’m from a different era or something where discovery was everything. When you went out record shopping looking for one or two records and you’d come back with five records that you didn’t know existed, I envy people who are able to have that feeling. I mean a lot of those sounds were from six or seven years ago when electroclash was big, there was always that element in that scene and that was when a great bulk of my disco collection was bought. I’ve actually started, instead of complaining that there’s no great music out there being released, I’m rediscovering my record collection, just going though all those interesting records I bought and never really listened to enough and checking if there’s anything there that would work now.

Do you have any aspirations to release any solo material under your own name or a pseudonym of some sort?

I’m constantly working on that sort of stuff and it all really depends on things coming together. I’ve spent so much more time in the studio now and less time DJing that I think things will just come together when they do, so yes I intend to.

Was the progression from to producing studio albums like The Mystery Jets a natural process or did you actively seek it out?

It was really natural, my first foray into production was with The Long Blondes and Mystery Jets heard that stuff and liked it and asked my if I wanted to work with them. They were all people that I knew from doing Trash and there was that kind of relaxed nature to it, nothing was through management, no formal letters as such. The Late of the Pier soon happened off the back of the Mystery Jets, but I knew them well before we discussed any sort of production stuff.

Lastly, I’d just like to get your thoughts about internet downloads and the future direction of the music industry in general.

I really don’t know what’s going to happen with downloads or the industry as such. Certain parts of the industry are going to suffer greatly and other areas are going to expand, like with all things. It’s a revolution of sorts which kind of implies that major change is inevitable.

Beyond the Wizards Sleeve: Re-Animations Vol. 1 is out now through Stomp. Erol Akan will play Parklife around the country during September and October:

Sat 26th Sep – Botanic Gardens & Riverstage, Brisbane
Sun 27th Sep – Wellington Square, Perth
Sat 3rd Oct – Birrarung Marr, Melbourne
Sun 4th Oct – Kippax Lake, Moore Park, Sydney
Mon 5th Oct – Botanic Park, Adelaide

inthemix is a proud presenting partner of Parklife in 2009! Keep your eyes peeled to our Festival Page at inthemix.com.au/parklife